The present invention relates to a distributor for distributing a fluid to a plurality of destinations.
A finely powdered coal, for example, is quarried out from a hopper into a main supply pipe and then is conveyed to its destination, e.g. to a plurality of powdered coal burners, which are provided in a combustion furnace. In order to distribute finely powdered coal together with a carrier gas such as a solid-gas two phase fluid to a plurality of burners, a plurality of branch pipes extending to the corresponding burners, respectively, are provided with a quantitative feeder, such as a helical screw feeder, rotary vane feeder, table feeder, etc., which measures and supplies the finely powdered coal to these branch pipes.
However, conventional feeders require one quantitative feeder for each branch pipe. This makes the control of the feeders complicated as well as increases the initial cost.
A distributor has been devised to overcome such drawbacks, which comprises a hollow header through which a fluid in a main pipe is in communication with a plurality of branch pipes. The distributor of this type, however, does not achieve uniform distribution of the fluid.
The distributor shown in FIG. 1 is a conventional one which comprises a hollow header 12 connected to a plurality of branch pipes 13. The powdered coal quarried out from a hopper (not shown) is conveyed through a main pipe 11 to the hollow header 12, in which the powdered coal carried on a carrier gas is distributed to each of the branch pipes 13 which lead to respective burners of a combustion-heated furnace (not shown). The above embodiment, however, presents a problem that it is difficult to precisely control the flow rate of powdered coal in each of the branch pipes, resulting in wide fluctuations in the flow rate of powdered coal in each of the branch pipes. Thus, it is impossible to attain a uniform distribution with this distributor. This is because the fluid in the main pipe is not under a steady flow and because the center of the fluid supplied through the main pipe is biased when it diverges or enters into the header 12.